Broadsheet #7: The Paper Skiff

Down the Gowanus (2011)

About, With & For (2013)

MassMoCA: North Adams, MA (2011)

Broadsheet #4: The Liberum Kayak

SeaWorthy (2011)

Exhibitions

Broadsheet #8: On the Charles River

Publications

ML Broadsheet #1: The Liberum Dory

Publications

SeaChange: We All Live Downstream (2014)

Adventures

Hacking the Free Seas Since 2007

Mare Liberum* (or, “The Free Seas”) is a freeform publishing, boatbuilding and waterfront art collective and civic initiative, based in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, New York. Finding its roots in centuries-old stories of urban water squatters and haphazard watercraft builders, Mare Liberum is a collaborative exploration of what it takes to make viable aquatic craft as an alternative to life on land. It is also a way to make visible the overlooked and the neglected, in particular the often toxic waterways of our urban centers. The collective draws from sources as diverse as ocean-crossing raft assemblages, improvised refugee boats built in Senegal and Cuba, and modern stitch-and-ply construction methods which make complex, classic boat designs approachable by novice builders.

SeaChange: We All Live Downstream is a participatory voyage down the Hudson River in small boats made of paper – initiated by Brooklyn-based boatbuilding collective Mare Liberum and global climate change activists 350.org. We will be launching in Troy, NY on August 31, and landing in New York City in mid-September. Along the way we will be convening community assemblies and artistic collaborations to share stories of resistance and resilience – strengthening local networks and collectively planning future collaborations. We will visit sites of existing and planned destructive infrastructure as well as sustainability projects. We will end with a circumnavigation of Manhattan and a press conference

We're stoked to be included in the exhibition "About, With & For" curated by Juliana Driever at the Boston Center for the Arts / Mills Gallery this fall. As part of our project for the exhibition, we'll be bringing Le Massicot out of storage along with our two paper canoes and traveling the length of the Charles River, roughly 80 miles by water (or just 30 as the crow flies) from its headwaters in Echo Lake down to Boston Harbor. The Mills is also hosting us for another paper boatbuilding workshop on November 16 – see their website for more info

Mare Liberum is coming back to the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY this summer, leading a couple of two-day workshops making paper canoes. Stephan will teach participants how to make the boats during a hands-on class where everyone will help out and get their hands dirty throughout the process. In the spirit of all our boats, no prior boat-building experience is required, and the goal will be to get a boat on the water before it’s all over. The first workshop is July 27th and 28th, and the second will be August 17th and 18th. If you are interested in

Our sole extant semi-dory (a.k.a. "HMS Biggie Smalls") will be making made its penultimate performance/voyage this weekend as a player in Paul Benney and Robert Sullivan's Retreat to Victory at Proteus Gowanus... before retiring to become a flower garden at Myrtle Village Green. We are happy to see the semi-dory having a dignified run at old age. We, of course, will always remember the semi for its less historic but no-less important voyages along the Gowanus Canal, which often looked more like this: Retreat to Victory A performance by Paul Benney and Robert Sullivan Saturday, May 11th, 7:30 pm Proteus Gowanus $5 admission